By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
After the sudden death of Conner High School teacher and head football coach Dave Trosper on Saturday, athletic director Jim Hicks contacted football players about meeting at the field that evening to honor their mentor.
“It wasn’t just the team that came, former players came, kids from other sports came, parents. I mean, it was a great outpouring,” said Hicks, who was an assistant coach on Trosper’s staff. “It was a shock to everybody, and everybody wanted to come and be together on the field to honor him as a community. It was great.”
Trosper was 55 years old when he died of an apparent heart attack on Saturday.
He spent the last 18 years as a teacher and head football coach at Conner. He came there in 2007 after starting his head coaching career at Holmes from 2003 to 2006.
Hicks was a teacher and coach at Conner when Trosper joined the faculty and they became good friends.
They went golfing together Friday, one day before Trosper passed away.
“When he came on at Conner I knew it was going to be a positive thing for our football program and our school,” Hicks said.
“It was so much more than just football. He was about the kids and seeing their growth and caring about them. He wanted to see their success off the field as well as on the field. That’s what made him such a great man, was his love for his players and his love for his students.”
One of Trosper’s former players was Hicks’ son, Jared, the starting quarterback in 2018 and 2019. Jared was out of town Saturday when his dad called him about the coach’s sudden death.
“Dave was a true mentor to him,” Hicks said. “To see him grow and become the football player and the man he is today, I give a lot of that to coach Trosper because he touched his life, and many other lives, in so many different ways.”
Trosper was an all-state linebacker on the 1987 Boone County team that made it to the Class 4A state final. He continued his playing career at Union College in Kentucky and made a team-high 139 tackles during his senior season in 1991.
The 22 years he spent at Holmes and Conner made him the longest active head coach in Northern Kentucky at the end of last season. His Conner teams compiled a 111-93 record in 18 seasons and his career record was 124-120 in 22 seasons.
Hicks said the funeral service for Trosper will be held at Conner High School, but the details are still being worked out.